Blog of Aestheticized Violence.
Cornell University, Classes: One Girl in All the World and American Flow

Saturday, March 10, 2012

When Women Do Something They Don’t Necessarily Want to Do

In
class on Thursday, we talked about the sex scene in Promethea Book 2. Although
Sophie did not want to trade sex to learn magic, she agreed. Right when I read
the scene in which she says she’ll do it, I got disgusted. I thought that she
was basically selling herself for knowledge, like a prostitute. However, I
didn’t realize a key element. Sophie knew that she could only learn magic via
this method. She later alludes to this after the sex scene when she is
flabbergasted that there is more to learn in books. As Promethea, she had sex
with the old magician, and even though it was creepy and weird, it was her choice. Therefore, it was not
done against her will and shouldn’t be viewed as a form of prostitution.

This
scene reminded me of an episode of TrueBlood when Sookie Stackhouse is
forced to go to Texas because of a deal she made. Bill Compton, her boyfriend
at the time, was very protective of her and scoffed at the idea of her doing
anything that she even slightly didn’t want to do. Bill failed to realize that
Sookie made the deal beforehand, knowing that she would have to uphold her side
of it. Just as I acted when reading Promethea, Bill failed to see that she made
her own decision.

In
society today a double standard exists for men and women when making deals, especially if they concern sex. If a
woman has to do something that she is one hundred percent okay with, people
automatically jump to the conclusion that she was forced to do it. In both of
the cases mentioned above, the woman wasn’t necessarily overjoyed to uphold her
end of the deal, but she made her own choice
and agreed.

If a man were in
a similar situation, he would be told to “man up” and deal with it. I am not
advocating that women should have to do things they don’t want to do (nor am I
promoting Sophie having sex with the magician as Promethea), I’m just
pointing out that there is a definite difference in similar situations that concern men rather than women. When making deals with people, sacrifice is
sometimes necessary (not to the same extent of course; I’m merely talking about
sacrificing time/effort, etc). Women should not be treated any differently than
men in similar situations. If we want true equality, we have to have equality in
all arenas, even if the equality brings negative effects. Women can’t ask to be
treated equally and then expect to be able to back down from a deal. Now when I
think of Promethea or Sookie’s deal, I see that they were merely making their
own choices. Both benefitted from their end of the deal, so it’s not right to
say that they were used or treated unfairly. Women have to “man up” just as
males do.